LJ LephemStar

Independent Game Developer. Creator of Scratchin' Melodii.

[lj-lephemstar]

Progress Checkup! (May 2026) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Hey again everyone! In case you missed it, in March I uploaded a new gameplay preview showcasing the boss stage of Act 2. This one's called "My Darling Is A Robot", with the new character, Dr. Nitrofunk voiced by Jay M (or Jtastic as some of you may know him!)

Dr. Nitrofunk is a robotics scientist with the ambitious dream of giving everyone (who can pay for it) the same happiness and companionship that was given to him by his robotic wife, Robo-Darling.

Also, while it typically goes without saying anyway, I forgot to include the "(Gameplay footage not final)" text at the beginning of the preview. I still have some work to do on the background, so if his lab looks a bit empty at the moment, that's why.

As I've mentioned before, this is the longest song I've done for the game so far, running at a little over 3 minutes long, so there's still plenty you haven't seen yet of it! I'm excited for you all to experience it and get to know these new characters once the full game is complete. Evidently, it seems I've been getting more comfortable writing longer songs. In fact, it's looking like one of the later Act 3 songs I'm working on might be the first rival stage to run over 2 minutes long. For perspective, Grease Poppin', the boss stage of Act 1, was around 2 minutes to be longer than its Act's rival songs... I suppose the increasing length of the songs can just be considered part of the difficulty curve for now...?

Since all of the "note gimmicks" in My Darling Is A Robot are ones already introduced in previous songs, there aren't a lot of new gameplay mechanics to talk about for this stage. However, in the lines where you assemble the Robo-Darlings, the way you freestyle will actually affect the look of the finished Robo-Darling! The game will remember the combinations you made, so freestyle wisely!

Other than that though, I've made a few more QoL changes to the UI for clarity during duet lines with more than one row. For example, in this part of Stir & Mix, Melodii and Jamtine will have completely separate rhythm tracks to use instead of sharing one. The old method of overlapping them proved to be rather jarring and confusing, so this should hopefully make it clear that it's your turn. It'll also be much more of a compatible format with any possible multiplayer modes down the road.

As a sidenote, I've also rehauled my approach to developing Easy Mode. Previously, I've tried different methods such as simplified charts (which weren't ideal on first time playthroughs) and more generous beat detection (which wasn't noticeable enough for players in any meaningful way). With all that in mind, I've landed on simply adding more layers of "health" to the Fidelity meter in easy mode, which means when you fail a line in easy mode, instead of going down a full status, you'll only go down half of one, like this.

I'd like for easy mode to be an option that allows players of lower skill levels to get a proper-ish experience of the game without hindering their chances to improve at the core mechanics while playing. However, Lucid state and certain other advanced techniques will be disabled in easy mode to encourage easy mode players to eventually switch back to normal mode once they feel like they're ready.

As for other progress, I'm currently at the lineart and coloring phase of animating the first rival battle of Act 3.

I don't have a Q&A section this devlog, but do still feel free to leave questions in the comments so I can perhaps answer some of them in a later devlog. Thanks for keeping up with the development of Scratchin' Melodii! Don't forget to wishlist it on Steam if you haven't already, we're up to over 50,600 wishlists so far! I'm incredibly thankful for the support.

-LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

New Scratchin' Melodii gameplay preview showcasing "My Darling Is A Robot", a boss battle featuring Jay M as Dr. Nitrofunk!

[lj-lephemstar]

Progress Checkup! (Jan. 2026) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Happy New Year everyone! Thanks for another year of following/supporting the development of Scratchin' Melodii. Let's touch base again on the game's progress over the past few months.

PROGRESS: In October, I finished implementing the Act 2 boss and I now continue chipping away at animation. I'm currently animating the first stage of Act 3. If you're wondering when I'll be showing a gameplay preview of the Act 2 boss though, I'm not sure at the moment! The audio isn't completely ready yet, but even aside from that, there will probably be a point where I'll have to decide to start saving most of the gameplay previews for when the game is closer to release. Whether or not that point will be before or after the Act 2 boss is shown is still up in the air though.

Another thing I've been working on is the hub world. As I've mentioned before, the tutorial and beginning of story mode are being revamped to better introduce the player to the game's mechanics. This has led to a new, more purposeful foundation for the hub world in general. That's right, by popular demand, the hub world will no longer be useless gameplay-wise. It'll be a safe space to discretely let the player be introduced to and practice new gameplay mechanics. For example, the area leading up to the tutorial song has gates you must unlock by completing simple rhythm challenges using the gameplay style of the actual stages.

This is somewhat of an evolution of the "music boxes" that were seen in the 2022 test demo's story mode, in which they weren't necessary for progression and had a simple mini-game that didn't resemble the main gameplay. Having them directly tied to the main gameplay was out of the question before, but now with the new framework it's finally possible. (There's also the fact that I just hadn't thought of it back then!) Of course, these simple gates from the tutorial area won't be the only way I can utilize this feature, so you'll see it contextualized differently in many areas throughout the game. Think of it as the game's equivalent to puzzles in a RPG (or perhaps even random encounters, depending on your perspective?)

Also, Melodii also has new hub world sprites! This is mostly just to update them to their current design. I might tweak some of the motions a little more later, but I'm much more satisfied with these.

Q&A:

Q: Will there be secret stages in the game? A: There aren't any plans for this at the moment. With the amount of work that goes into animating the songs, I think it'd be beyond my scope to spend too much time on an entire stage that doesn't contribute to the story and that many players might not even see. There may be secrets to discover within some of the main songs themselves though, so keep an eye out!

Q: How many acts will the game's story mode have? A: Currently, the plan is for there to be 4 acts with the 4th one being slightly longer than the rest. Earlier in development, I mentioned wanting to do 5, but by this point I think the story would be best wrapped up in just 4.

Q: Will there be multiplayer? A: I won't go as far as to guarantee it right now, but it's definitely something I want to include! I've been coding everything with the possibility of adding it at some point later in mind. For now, I'll be focusing on singleplayer first.

Q: Will Lucid Mode for Grease Poppin' look the same as it did in the beta? A: Nope! It'll probably look a lot different, I'm no longer satisfied with the 3d models in that version and I feel I can do a lot more with the scenario for it in general.

Q: Why isn't the beta demo on Steam? A: This is mostly because I don't think it's a good enough representation of what to expect from the full game, especially with things like story mode and the scoring system. The rest of the game's testing will be done in private now, so it's just something for people interested enough in what that earlier state in the game's development was like.

Q: Will there be any merch for the game? A: All I can say right now is that any merch will probably be around or after the date of the game's release.

That's a wrap for this one! December was a great month for other indie rhythm games, so if you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out UNBEATABLE, Bits & Bops, and Rhythm Doctor, which all just had their full releases. (I'm not sponsored I swear) That should give you a little something to do in the meantime! Thanks for reading.

-LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

Progress Checkup! (Sep. 2025) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

​Hello again everyone! Looks like it's been a long time since the last devlog. (again).  Sorry about that! It's for a good reason though actually, as like I mentioned on Twitter and Bluesky, I'm now at a point in development where the majority of the workload is with animations, music, and other non-coding related tasks. This is because the game's new framework for the stages is pretty much complete! The tradeoff though, is that less coding for me to do also means less for me to write about in these devlogs. Talking about animation and music is a bit more difficult, especially since I can't show you most of it yet. All things considered though, rest assured that I am indeed still putting my all into working on the game. I'm lucky enough to be in a position that allows me to work on this game full-time. Nearly every single day, I spend most of my time working on it and making progress, even if you can't always see it!

Well, let's get started then. Firstly, I'm pleased to tell you that last week I finished all of the 2D animation for the Act 2 boss! Since then, I've just been making the necessary 3D models for it and implementing everything into the actual game. It's going incredibly smooth so far, which means all that coding I did to make the process smoother was a success. I'll have to give myself a promotion 👆🏽🎖‼

This boss won't introduce any new special note mechanics, but instead will utilize all of the new mechanics introduced in Act 2's other songs. I felt like this pattern would be perfect from a game design standpoint, as the player gets to conclude each Act using everything they've learned from said Act's rival battles. I wasn't entirely safe from coding anything new here though, as I just made it so that the beat dots/stars on the UI will rearrange their order to line up with the placement of the first note on each respective line. This way, lines that begin on a backbeat or middle beat will be properly reflected visually instead of just always starting from the first beat of the measure. (In case you didn't know: The 4 stars represent the 4 main beats in each measure! Gameplay wise, these don't function any different from middle beats, they just help you visualize the BPM)

As you can see, I've also tweaked the UI a bit again. Most notably, the Fidelity meter and Score counter have both been moved to the bottom and given new looks. I was having issues with the previous placement of the Fidelity bar, as I needed a good and clear way way to visually represent when the player is close to ascending into Lucid. As I experimented I concluded it was just far too cramped up there for me to do much of anything. So, I just moved it to the bottom. (Along with the score counter too to keep things balanced) People who are familiar with what the dog was doing may be more accustomed to this layout.

I think that wraps it up for what I can say about progress at the moment, so to make up for the likely slower rollout of devlogs for a while, I decided to answer a few more questions I've seen on social media. (I'll be kinda paraphrasing them, but hopefully my answers suffice!)

Q: "Would it be a good idea to hire more people in your team to help with the development of the game? Even if you already have enough?" A: In my case, I don't think so at the moment. Right now, I actually don't exactly have a traditional dev team. I don't think I'm ready to manage something like that. Of course, I do still work with some people for a few recurring things, such as the voice actors performing their roles and 2cada tuning/mixing the vocals for the songs, but other than maybe bringing on a "guest" here and there to do a special thing for the game, (like when I had Marceline Gainsboro animate the pixel art section in Sidechain Fever) it'll continue to be me making most of everything for now.

Q: "Will there be modding support? (e.g. custom characters, charts, frames/sprites, dialogue, story mode, etc)" A: Sorry, but probably not. Going out of my way to make my game into a feasible platform for other peoples' works is far beyond my scope. I'll just be focusing on expressing my own art and ideas as well as I can within the medium.

Q: "Since the tutorial level is changing, will  the Astral Advisors still have a role in the game?" A: Yes, at least one of them will be. I'm a little on the fence about whether or not having both of them would be beneficial or just too bloated for my plans, but this is just a thought right now of course.

Q: "Will the game be translated into other languages in the future?" A: I can't promise it, but if it does happen, it would likely only be subtitles.

Q: "Will any more stages be getting their animations updated? How difficult is this?" A: Yep, at some point I do plan to revisit some of the parts from earlier in development just to keep a consistent level of quality. To keep things moving, I will likely be doing this after I have more of the new stuff complete. The process of doing this can be a bit convoluted sometimes depending on how long ago it was first worked on. That's why for Stir & Mix, I focused on getting motions more fluid first before adjusting the frames to her new proportions. (This resulted in some pretty wildly different looking WIP stages you may have seen before the preview video of it was released.) Most things I've animated since 2023 were made with the possibility of me wanting to change them later in mind, so it shouldn't be too grueling for those at least.

Q: "How's progress going with the other stages' Lucid modes?" A: Other than some models and animations I already have ready, I haven't done much for it since I've implemented the one for Stir & Mix. The framework was made for me to easily implement it into the other stages when I'm ready to though, so I'll probably do a lot of it around the same time so I can really be in a "3D mindset"!

Looks like this devlog ended up being a pretty long one after all, thanks to the questions. Not sure how often I'll do these Q&A portions, but of course feel free to ask something in the comments. I can't answer everything of course, but your interest in my passion project is appreciated nonetheless. :) Thanks for reading!

-LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

Progress Checkup! (Apr. 2025) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Hey there! I felt like it was time for another devlog, it's been a little longer than usual I think. I felt it was less of a priority since I'd just shown off a gameplay preview, so my deepest apologies to all 7 dedicated devlog readers...

First off, in case you missed it, Lucid Mode was shown off in a recent gameplay preview of Stir & Mix!

During stages, freestyling well enough on two consecutive lines will allow you to ascend into Lucid Mode, a state where there are no charts or suggestions to follow, just your own freestyles! Successfully completing the stage in Lucid will give you a special ending scene and an emblem on your rank as lasting proof of your success.

To answer a few questions about it I've seen floating around:

Q: Does this mean the other parts of the song are gone? A: No, going Lucid is something that only happens if you manage to activate it yourself. Otherwise, the song continues as normal.

Q: Can it be disabled? A: Yep, if you're like really good at freestyling but still don't wanna ascend into Lucid, there will be a toggle in the Options menu to enable/disable the ability for it to activate.

Q: Can this happen in every stage? A: Probably! That's the plan, unless I find a rare reason it wouldn't work well for one.

In the preview, you can also see that Stir & Mix itself has been updated a bit in the vocal and artwork departments! Compared to the 2023 beta version's vocals, 2cada tuned them with a bit more stylization this time. In terms of artwork, the animations were redone in my current art style, as another step towards a consistent art style by release. In the process, I was able to make the animations much more fluid and expressive!

Little fun fact about that, Jamtine's hair actually used to cover up more of her eyes/eyebrows as if they were bangs of some sort, but I eventually moved it out the way so I could have more freedom with her expressions, which I found important for a character like her. An inverse of that philosophy would be Nami, who has her sunglasses and bangs cover up her eyes/eyebrows to give her a more mysterious feel. It's hard to tell what's going on in Nami's head! (If anything at all!)

Now, let's talk about the gameplay and UI again. Here's a little quickfire of some changes I've made: 

The Next Line Tab has a "NEXT" text sign above it and will stay at the end of the Player's line to help with clarity

 The background bar of each line now adjusts to the line's length to also help with visual clarity

When points are gained or deducted, it now briefly flashes over the score counter instead of having a separate bubble

Holding the button on pow notes instead of tapping them will accumulate extra points until you either release it or reach the max amount. The more buttons you manage to hold at once, the more points you'll get!

Landing notes on the later end of a beat marker without being off-beat can count as swing rhythm, adding extra points.

To account for the new score system and its balancing, you won't need the Perfect Bonus to be eligible for an S-rank anymore

Overall, I'd say the new rhythm/scoring system is much more consistent, balanced, forgiving, and accurate to the game's inspirations compared to how it was in the beta demos.

As for future stuff I'm working on, I've been animating the Boss battle for Act 2. Not much I can really say about it atm, but the song's going for an electro-funk style. Pretty happy with how it's been turning out so far!

I've also been redesigning the stage select screen to be easier to navigate and easier for me add more stages and acts to it. This one's able to just pull the needed information from each song/act and arrange it all accordingly instead of me having to manually do it each time I add something. It's still very much a work in progress, but it's functional! I haven't gotten to drawing McWave's new icons yet... (Don't look too deep into the number of acts here btw, it just stops at 3 because that's as far as I've indexed it at the moment!)

I've also started working on a redesign for the results screen. Since the new scoring doesn't have equal spaces between the rank requirements, I decided to replace the linear rank meter with a more dial-like one that goes through a cycle per each rank threshold you pass. Along with it, I'll have to finally make new results screen animations for Melodii at some point. Not sure yet if the pose Melodii's doing in this concept sketch will be what I end up using, but I definitely will be letting them aura farm more.

To save the most boring for last, optimization. For the notes in stages, I've started using a method called "Object Pooling". (Which I actually hadn't heard of until recently.) Basically, note objects get recycled now when possible​ instead of created/destroyed, which helps reduce memory usage. For materials, I've managed to up performance by using Texture Arrays and a pretty convoluted shader trick where I put the vertices of UV layers at specific coordinates, which are then decoded to be used as material info. (e.g. color, spec, emission) That way, more meshes can share materials while looking different instead of loading in separate ones. Not really sure how common this is, as I couldn't find much info on it, but it seems to be working pretty well so far! I was also able to cut performance costs in some areas by taking a screenshot of a background model and having the game render a flat image instead of the entire model. This works pretty well for shots where large background models are far away or when the camera angle stays static.

That's all for now! As always, thanks for reading.

-LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

New gameplay preview showcasing Lucid Mode and some new animations and vocals for Stir & Mix in Scratchin' Melodii! (I tried to upload the video itself here, but it kept failing, so here's a YT link instead!) See you next devlog!

[lj-lephemstar]

Progress Checkup! (Jan. 2025) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Hey guys! Time for another progress checkup; This is actually the first one of the new year! I hope you were all able to enjoy the holidays. I took a bit of a break from working on most stuff last month and have been getting back on things this month. First, I wanna thank everyone who's wishlisted Scratchin' Melodii on Steam! So far, the game's gotten over 17,000 wishlists! Thanks so much for the support!

In the previous devlog, I mentioned some changes to the rhythm system. In the Dragon Funk preview, you can see the new rhythm system and character icons I mentioned in the previous devlog! Actually, let's unpack some of the new things you're seeing in action there:

Hold Notes This is the first song in the game to include hold-notes! They mostly work the same as they would in any other rhythm game. However, since this game has an emphasis on self expression, moving the control stick during these will let you tune the note's pitch-bend for extra expression points! I showed that off in a post here. As for Pow Notes, I've been working on a way to let the player get expression points from these too! I'd like for most of the special notes like these to be not just a gimmick, but a tool that the player can use to their advantage.

Quadruple Lines Yep! The first blue line in this one is extra long and has 4 rows! Fun fact actually, I had to implement this feature after I realized that part of the song was too long to fit in just two rows. It was pretty difficult to figure out both how to do it and how to execute it in a way that doesn't feel too jarring, but I'm pretty satisfied with the results! In fact, barely anyone's even noticed it; I guess that's just how natural it feels! Not sure how much more often I'll be having lines longer than two rows, but it's great that I have the option now.

AutoPlay You might also notice that the player inputs are perfectly timed... TOO perfect... that's because I've developed an autoplay feature for the game! At the moment, it's mostly for debugging and stuff, but if all goes according to plan, AutoPlay Mode and Replays should hopefully be available to players as well in some form when the game comes out!

"Next" Indicator & Other UI Related QoL Some of the top things players said they had trouble with in the demo were related to being prepared for the next line. So, if you look at the right-end of the rhythm bars, you'll see a little tab that shows the color and amount of rows the next line will have! Also, now each line's suggested notes can be seen before the rival performs them. This did take some thought, as I actually kinda still liked the idea of it appearing as if the characters were making it up on the spot, but to put game design first, it makes more sense to have it displayed as soon as possible so the player has more time to react and prepare. This also opens up more possibilities for future mechanics, so in the long run, I think I've made the best choice here.

Now, let's get into what I've been and/or will be working on that you haven't seen yet!

Act 2's Boss The music for the Act 2 Boss is  nearly complete! I'll likely be starting to animate it pretty soon. This song is the longest one I've done so far, clocking at a duration of a little over 3 minutes long!

More Animation Updates for Stir & Mix At this point, I've done even more cleanups on the sequence you saw in the last devlog and I've finished animating the "I wanna" scene of the song, which will probably have the most changes out of any other scene in the song. When I first animated Stir & Mix, I didn't quite have the time or skills to do everything I really wanted to do with it. That scene in particular I felt was WAY too stiff and boring, especially compared to the more dynamic and fluid scenes that appear in some of the other the stages now. I'd say I'm about halfway done retouching all the animations for this one!

Refined Model Sheets I don't talk about these very often, but sometime around 2023 I started using model/reference sheets for the characters. (I might show them off someday, but for now they're staying private!) Before this point, the designs are pretty inconsistent from shot to shot, so this helped a lot with that. Recently, I've done some revisions I'm really pleased with. Their designs are finally becoming... well, final! I'll be reworking the affected characters' hub world sprites at some point to reflect these changes.

Slight Reworks for some Act 1 Songs On the sound side, Stir & Mix's vocals have been reworked again! As I've mentioned in the previous devlog, 2cada's tuning style and techniques have evolved a bit since we first started working together, so we thought it'd be fun to go back and incorporate some of that into it. We'll also probably be reworking the structure of Nami's song a little bit at some point just to make it a feel a bit more solid, which may require a new line or two from her voice actor, Meggie-Elise! So funnily enough, it seems some of the songs will have end up having TWO unused beta versions after this.

Also, a quick PSA: Please note that beta versions of content will NOT be included in the full game. I've heard people ask for them to be "brought back" or toggleable, but in my situation something like that is both easier said than done and I also just... don't want to LOL. With as many directions I can take this game, I know I can't satisfy everyone, but I can make a game that satisfies me, so I'm aiming for that! And hey, maybe other people will like it too.

I think that's all I wanna talk about for now! Thanks so much for reading. It can be a bit of a daunting task to write these at times, but I'm glad to keep you up to date on the project when I can.

-LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

Dragon Funk is the first stage in Scratchin' Melodii to introduce hold notes! On these, you can tune the note's pitch-bend with the control stick for extra points. Also, freestyling on certain lines against Pitaya will catch her off guard and let you land hits!

[lj-lephemstar]

You can now wishlist Scratchin' Melodii on Steam! Here's a preview of a new rival battle called Dragon Funk, feat. BethyVA as the voice of Pitaya! 🐉

Credits: Music, Art, Animation, Etc - LJ LephemStar (me!) Vocal Tuning/Mixing -Mia (2cada) Pitaya (Voice) - BethyVA

Scratchin' Melodii on Steam

Scratchin' Melodii is a rhythm game about self expression. Repeat or remix the notes to find your own groove in this radical and ridiculous

[lj-lephemstar]

Progress Checkup! (Nov. 2024) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

​​Hey again guys! Sorry if it's been a bit since the last devlog. With how much I've been up to, it sure feels like it!

Let's get right into it. For starters, the 3rd rival battle of Act 2 is complete! I'll likely be showing a gameplay preview of it sometime soon. This is the first song to use the new framework that I'll be using for all the other stages going forward, which also means I've had to spend the past couple weeks getting the previous songs working with this new system too... Did you know that in the demo builds, if I wanted to change something about the gameplay, I'd have to manually go back and change it for EACH individual song one by one? Well now, imagine all the songs had like a peace treaty to just share one good, clean, and organized system that I can easily tweak and add to as I please. So development is gonna be smoother than ever from here! This is how most games are SUPPOSED to work, but I was a liiittle too stupid to figure out how to do this until recently!

While I was moving Cream Cheese Icing over to this new system, I took the opportunity to make the chart a bit more beginner-friendly! For example, the first line went from this...

To just this!

As you can see, it has less notes, therefore it is less scary for new players. Believe it or not, I actually never intended for Cream Cheese Icing to be so difficult for new players in the first place! Naturally, being too good at my own game can make gauging the difficulty curve a bit tricky at times, but I think I'm figuring it out!​

You may have also noticed that the characters have new UI icons too! I felt like the old ones were too flat and boring, so I did a new take on them, aiming for more dynamic shapes and angles, not to mention how my art style's just kinda grown a bit in general since I last drew the icons. I also ended up leaving out the circles behind them. I was a little worried I was gonna run out of unique colors for all of them at some point, plus SOME of these guys can have really big hair and/or hats that pretty much just cover up the whole circle anyway. (hi rensa)

Speaking of artwork, here's a little look at some of the updated animation I've done for Stir & Mix! (Try to imagine it in not highly-compressed-gif-form. I promise it looks better in-game!)

When working on Stir & Mix related stuff, I can't help but feel a bit of a sense of dread knowing how people may react to it... Honestly, sometimes I kinda wish it never got as popular as it did in 2022. But hey, doing my own thing regardless of what's expected of me is the most Scratchin' Melodii thing I could do!

Speaking of which, Mia learned a ton of new stuff while doing the VOCALOID tuning for the last rival battle we worked on, so we might revisit Stir & Mix's vocals again at some point before release to give it even more style! (By the way, Mia and 2cada are the same person! Sorry if I refer to both names interchangeably! She's been the one doing all the VOCALOID tuning and vocal mixing for the game since 2023.)

Well, I think that's all for now! Here's another friendly reminder that there will NOT be anymore demos of the game. Any new content will be saved for the full game's release. I know I've said it before, but I probably won't stop saying it until people stop getting confused about it LOL. Thanks for reading!! I appreciate you. - LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

Progress Checkup! (Aug. 2024) | Scratchin' Melodii Devlog

Hello again, strangers! I thought it was about time to add another devlog again! This time I'm trying out a more in-depth approach to this, to somewhat make up for the lack of gameplay previews. Let me know what you think!

For starters, I've revamped the rhythm system 🤯 (like... again! 🤯) Don't freak out, though. Surface level gameplay-wise, it works mostly the same as it did in the last demo, so you won't have to re-learn much. I just needed to redo some things so it'd be easier for me to work with in the long-run while developing the rest of the game. Way less headaches await me now when working on new levels. In the process, I was also able to incorporate some neat new aspects to it and make the core aspects of it better. If you're familiar with older rhythm games, it's now a tad closer to what the dog was doing.

The opponent's icon has been covered up to avoid spoilers. I might be updating all of the character icons soon, actually.

I still plan to revamp the game's tutorial at some point. Something I've noticed is that often, new players don't seem to understand the purpose of the beat dots. Initially, I thought the idea that "on the beat dot = on beat" would come as second nature to new players without need for explanation. However, I hadn't considered that many players are likely to be more familiar with rhythm games that don't even have beat dots in this manner, so they're probably inclined to focus more on getting as close as possible to matching the order of the suggested inputs, and in this game, even at the cost of being off-beat if they aren't keeping up. So, I think the most important thing I need to emphasize when I give a new in-game explanation of the mechanics is the beat dots and really getting new players into the mindset of prioritizing the tempo. I think I should also have the tutorial's gameplay portion try to discretely get the player used to the control scheme to help people who haven't particularly memorized where all of their controller's buttons are without looking. This'll probably result in the tutorial song shown in the demo being replaced in the full game. I do still like its instrumental though, so maybe that will be repurposed for another game feature, at least.

There's probably some guy out there who just REALLY loves Astral Advisory as the tutorial song that will be very upset to hear this. In solidarity with them, I've depicted their enthusiasm with this rather silly image I've created.

As for other levels, now that I've got the updated rhythm system up and running, the 3rd rival battle of act 2 is almost complete. If you didn't like the Pow-Notes in Supastar Tennis, you might not like me very much after this! So far, I think this level has some of the best and most ambitious animation work I've done yet, so I hope you'll look forward to it. Not sure when I'll show a gameplay preview of this level, but I probably will at some point.

Also, I've made a new logo for the game! I'll gradually be phasing this one in to replace the old one, but until the full game releases you'll probably still see the old one hanging around too in some places.

That's all I can talk about for now, but thanks for reading! - LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

Scratchin' Melodii - Progress Checkup (Apr. 2024)

Hey guys! Just giving another progress checkup. Been working on a lot of stuff lately for Scratchin' Melodii! Keep in mind, since I won't be doing anymore demos, the stuff I talk about in these won't be released until the full game is released. 

Here's what I've been working on:

Redone Nami.WAV animations (Halfway Done!)  You already saw some of these in the 2023 demo!

Redone Stir & Mix animations (Done!)  I've been reanimating/cleaning up some of the animations in the levels that were animated earlier in development, as many of them are either off-model to how I currently draw the characters now or just aren't consistent with the quality of my more recent work.

Lucid Mode (Getting there!) Remember that experimental "Ascension" or "3D Mode" from the 2021 and 2022 demos? Well, I've finally got it working again with the new rhythm system. It's called "Lucid Mode" now. (Unless I change my mind again!) The most difficult part so far has been programming what happens when you fall out of it, but after a long week I think I've pretty much got it under control now. I'll show a preview of this mode when I think it's presentable!

??? (Act 2 Rival Battle 3) (Being Animated & Storyboarded)  Believe it or not, this will be my first time fully storyboarding a level's animations! I usually just kinda jump in with whatever I have planned in my mind, but I thought a more organized process would be worth a try this time.

Optimization Progress I've been learning some more optimization tricks, most recently with the beans in Sidechain Fever, of which I've managed to pretty much double performance! They look the same, but don't be fooled; their textures are handled differently now!

And other stuff that I can't talk about yet!

Now, with all these awesome things in the works, you're probably craving a look at some of it! Well, I don't feel like it. So here's a background model of a barbecue grill with placeholder materials.

A local of Uptown JamWell was asked about their thoughts on this barbecue grill. They stated: "If we're being real here, you could probably cook banana burgers on this barbecue."

Thanks for reading!

-LJ

[lj-lephemstar]

Thanks for 600,000+ downloads on the Scratchin' Melodii demo!

I feel like I'm on the right track now, so in case you didn't catch me mentioning this before, there will be no more public demos of the game. From here, I'll just be focusing on finishing the full game and I'll try to occasionally show some progress too!

But real quick, let's talk. For future games I make after I finish this one, I don't think I wanna do any public demos for them. I don't exactly regret the Melodii demos, they've helped me shape my first game for the better, but it's led to a lot of stress on me too.

For starters, I don't like how often my test demos are treated as if they're normal game releases. Being brought up as a "free trendy indie game!" before the game even comes out kinda concerns me. (Especially since the game's definitely going to cost money when it does come out!)

The 2022 demo in particular got way more attention than I ever intended/anticipated. Now a good chunk of people hold the way the game was back then as something "sacred" that should be preserved in the final work, while I really just want to move on and keep growing with my art.

The level of attachment some people have with the replaced/unfinished content is something you'd expect between sequels or remakes of an old game, but it's happening here between mere months of development of the same game. I don't want to feel nervous when pushing the game, its music, or anything else about it closer to my vision. Artistic growth is exciting to me, and frankly I don't want this to ruin that for me.

So yeah, TL;DR I'll probably be handling unfinished game stuff more privately for now.

Sorry about the long thread, I truly appreciate all the support and I hope you'll look forward to the future of the game :)

[lj-lephemstar]

It takes a lot of tweaks and practice for me to get my character designs to a point where I’m satisfied with them. The little details count! Here’s some of the thought process that went into finalizing Melodii’s, mostly focusing on their silhouette.

There are some older animations in the demo that I still need to catch up to this new basis, so I've been slowly refining them as I find the time to. You might've noticed I started doing so with the animations of Nami.WAV, but to a bit more of an extreme since I felt like making the visual composition more interesting there in general!

[lj-lephemstar]

Devlog: Scratchin' Melodii - Expression 101 (Freestyling Guide)

I posted a less in-depth version of this on Twitter the other day, but here's a full guide for freestyling and staying on-beat in the Scratchin' Melodii demo.

Sorry if I've been a little slow keeping up with Tumblr lately, things have been pretty hectic since I released the new demo, so I'm trying not to overwhelm myself! Rest assured though, I won't leave out anything TOO important from this blog. Speaking of which, if you haven't already, the latest version of the Scratchin' Melodii Christmas SAGE Demo is now V1.031, which fixes a good chunk of bugs. To update, you just have to either redownload from the itch.io page or if you installed the demo using the itch.io desktop app, it should update it on its own. Just check for the version number in the top left of the title screen to be sure! I hope for this patch to be stable enough for me to leave the demo be, but I'll just have to wait and see. I hope to take a very nice break soon. Thank you all, and I wish you a happy holidays!

[lj-lephemstar]

If you hadn't heard or were just waiting for the first wave of bugfixes to be done, the new Scratchin' Melodii demo is now available on itch io for Christmas SAGE! (By the way, optimization is still incomplete, so the game may be buggy on computers that can't run the game at its intended 60fps)

Scratchin' Melodii [DEMO] by LJ LephemStar

[lj-lephemstar]

Scratchin' Melodii Development Progress Checkup (Sept. 2023)

Hello! You may have heard that the SAGE 2023 demo of Scratchin' Melodii had to be delayed, as something came up in which I had to reevaluate my life priorities for a bit. I can't give any solid dates on when I'll be postponing the release of this demo to at the moment, but for now I'll say that you can probably expect it before the end of this year.  I'm aiming for this demo to be the last demo I release before I finish the full game, BUT keep in mind, that does NOT at all mean that the full game will be done soon. There's still a lot of work to do!! And in case I haven't made it clear enough before, I do plan for Scratchin' Melodii to be a full game that you purchase with money when I complete it. The reason I've been releasing small free demos is just to gather feedback and testing. This is my first game, after all!

Anyways, here's the progress checkup.

These will be featured or partially featured in the next demo:

Overhaul of Cream Cheese Icing (Rival Battle) (Done!)  

Supastar Tennis (Rival Battle) (Done!) 

Sidechain Fever (Rival Battle) (Done!)

Gameplay UI & Beat Detection Overhaul (Halfway done!)

Story Mode Overhaul (Under construction...)

Automatic Button Layout Option (Done!) 

I'm also working on a lot of other stuff that I'll be saving for the full game. You may have noticed that batches of songs/levels are separated into "Acts". Keep in mind, this is only a way of sorting the songs based on when and where they appear in story mode, the next demo will not include the entirety of Act 2, only two songs from it. I hope you'll look forward to it! :)

-LJ